My brand new Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Standard Zoom Lens arrived
yesterday. It is my first pro-class lens, and it is beautiful. The
autofocus is super-fast, the filter mount doesn’t turn with either
zoom or focus, it’s an f/2.8 rather than an f/4 (that’s two stops!), it’s sealed against
moisture and dust. Even better, I can manually focus when the lens is set to auto-focus, the focal length perfectly matches my flash gun (the old lens’ focal length went too far), I don’t have to push a switch to go on macroscopic focus, I can go macro at any focal length (not just the longest), and it’s just satisfyingly heavy. I can’t wait to use it.
As to the endowment effect, keep reading via the link below…
Since January, I have been saving up to purchase a new digital camera kit to replace my now-ancient 35mm EOS Rebel G starter kit that my parents bought me back in 1998 when I moved to Mountain View.
That EOS Rebel G and two basic Tamron lenses have served me well, but they are aging badly. My long lens
(75-300mm) locked up (both zoom and focus) due to grit and dirt back in
February, and while I was able to clean it out, the auto-focus is
busted. My medium zoom
(28-80mm) is fine and wonderfully light, but it has always been
slightly out of adjustment on focus: the lens can be turned past the
true "infinity" focus point, meaning if I’m not careful, I can get
out-of-focus shots very easily.
But more importantly, scanning in my slides has become incredibly
tedious (as opposed to exciting when I first bought my slide/negative
scanner six years ago). It’s simply a matter of volume: the quality of
my photography has improved and stabilized over the years, so that I
now can get seven or eight solid shots from a roll of film. Back in
1999 or 2000, I could only shoot one or two good shots per roll. That’s
a lot more scanning.
The quality of digital cameras has also substantially improved, and with Canon’s 5d,
there is now a (relatively) affordable digital SLR with a 35mm CMOS
chip. That is, the image sensor is the same size as a film exposure, so
you can get the full distortion effect from a wide-angle lens without a
conversion ratio.
Last month, I had saved up all but $300 or $400 of the $5,000 I had
budgeted for the entire kit, including body, lenses and accessories.
But I couldn’t pull the trigger. I had hit the endowment effect
(sort of). I valued the money I had saved more than I valued the camera
for which I had been scrimping and saving for months. Arrgggh!
Then it hit me: I felt comfortable with making the purchases
indivdually over time. Somehow, I placed less value on that $5,000 if
it was broken up into chunks of $1,000-$2,000. Could this be prospect theory, too? Status quo bias?
Or just guilt–that I should put big pots of money aside for a
downpayment on a house, or use them to pay to down my student loans.
Chanel may know…
Anyway, I decided to stick with film for a little while longer, and
begin upgrading my lenses in anticipation of the move to digital. This
lens is my first installment. It not only replaces my tiny little
Tamron medium range lens, but the extra four millimeters makes my
wide-angle less needed as well.